DNC: We’re still here

Wasserman Schultz's DNC will focus on three main areas to improve its efforts. | AP Photo

The DNC is trying to go on the offensive as well, mounting campaigns against new voting laws in an attempt to turn its Capitol Hill headquarters into a nexus of information, education and organizing tools for state activists and lawyers — some of whom will be coming on to the official payroll. It will be promoting the new effort heavily, starting with a Thursday morning announcement to supporters built around a launch video from Bill Clinton.

“It’s not enough anymore to be against these new voting restrictions,” he says, in a sign of Clinton attention to the national party. “This project, through legislation, education, registration and good old-fashioned advocacy and organizing, we’ll protect and extend the franchise.”

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Of course, it’s not lost on Democratic officials that higher turnout elections tend to go better for them.

“It’s good for democracy, and it’s good for the Democratic Party,” Dacey said of the Voter Expansion Project.

DNC officials are hoping to take that same defense-meets-offense mentality into the retooled rapid-response effort they’ll be unveiling at the conference. Once again, they’re working within their limited resources, trying to refract a more aggressive press operation into a more robust political presence overall.

To the extent that they’ve been active so far, it’s all been on the attack — more negative Chris Christie emails, for example, came from a dnc.org address than anywhere else. Now they’re going to try to get in the business of promoting Democrats and Democratic issues, too. When possible, they’ll do both, as the DNC did when it was the only official group that attacked likely 2016 GOP candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for saying Hillary Clinton would have to answer for Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, trashing him and pumping up the Clintons all at once.

But hanging over everything is the debt — huge, inescapable, and not yet half-eaten away by the historically high fundraising months the DNC racked up during last year’s shutdown and the Obamacare website fumble.

The RNC has $9.8 million cash on hand. And no debt.

The two upcoming events Obama will do for the DNC in Boston and Washington, and the one Vice President Joe Biden is headed to in Phoenix on Friday are the first of a series of planned DNC fundraisers, and their speeches at the winter meeting — Biden on Thursday, Obama on Friday — are the sign, people involved say, of a re-engaged White House. Fundraisers for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other committees are starting to have a DNC component built into them.

“Every dollar given to the DNC is used to pay down the Obama campaign debt and not to win 2014 elections, so any increased fundraising effort to the DNC is actually harmful to the cause,” said a Democratic strategist involved in this year’s campaigns.

“They understand that our goal and the direction we have to go is to make sure that we have a robust and healthy party that is ready for this election and the elections of the future,” said DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

Even as Obama leans on the DNC to do more with less in the face of mounting midterm pressure, he’s the one many Democrats blame for the shape they’re in. Many complained for years that the president wasn’t invested in the party structure, and saw the $25 million debt his campaign transferred to the DNC after raising over $1 billion as the death blow of disinterest, especially as he pumped up OFA.

The White House disputes this idea, with aides saying that after the 2012 campaign, Obama directed deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer — the aides who had been handling campaign questions for the president before the reopening of the White House political office last month — to get the DNC on “firmer footing.”

This went beyond finances, sources say, with attention going as well to hires — including Dacey — and other operational moves. Dacey’s in constant contact with new White House political director David Simas. The DNC has started organizing regular Friday afternoon conference calls with the communications and research staff of the DCCC, DSCC, Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which White House staff sometimes join.

Sources familiar with the DNC’s fundraising said there had been numerous events last year scheduled to try to deal with the debt, and suggested questions about competition with OFA are overblown.

Dean, who was chairman of the DNC when Obama became the nominee, said that there is no escaping the fact that Obama has created a shadow party.

“They have a huge climb back because of OFA,” said Dean, who’s skeptical of his old group’s ability to bounce back. “They can’t be a force until they get rid of their debt.”

“There was a very strong infrastructure that helped him get elected,” Dean said. “The problem is they’ve also privatized a lot of that. It’s not clear to me whether the DNC will ever be as strong as it was, but we’ll have to see.”